The Court of Ap­peal has re­fused to over­turn a judge’s de­ci­sion to de­ny an in­junc­tion to de­lay the Gov­ern­ment’s plan to in­tro­duce the long-tout­ed T&T Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty (TTRA), next month.

De­liv­er­ing a de­ci­sion, a short while ago, Ap­pel­late Judges Nolan Bereaux, Mark Mo­hammed, and Pe­ter Ra­jku­mar de­liv­ered a judg­ment in which they dis­missed an ap­peal brought by the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) through its mem­ber, cus­toms of­fi­cer Ter­risa Dho­ray.

It was a ma­jor­i­ty rul­ing with Jus­tice Bereaux and Mo­hammed agree­ing that High Court Judge Bet­sy Ann Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son was cor­rect to de­ny the in­junc­tion, last month.

Jus­tice Ra­jku­mar pro­vid­ed a dis­sent­ing judg­ment in which he dis­agreed with his col­leagues’ de­ci­sion.

“The judge is not plain­ly wrong in our view,” Jus­tice Bereaux said.

Pre­sent­ing sub­mis­sions in the ap­peal, last week, Dho­ray’s lawyer Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, claimed that Jus­tice Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son got it wrong when she re­fused the in­junc­tion, ear­ly last month.

Ram­lo­gan chal­lenged Jus­tice Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son’s rul­ing that al­though Dho­ray had raised an ar­guable case, it (the case) was not so “firm­ly based” to war­rant the in­junc­tion.

He point­ed out that if his client was even­tu­al­ly suc­cess­ful in prov­ing her sub­stan­tive case of the op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion of the TTRA, it would mean that the Gov­ern­ment ex­pend­ed sig­nif­i­cant re­sources in vain.

“They are go­ing to spend more mon­ey and if it is even­tu­al­ly deemed un­con­sti­tu­tion­al, it is go­ing to be wast­ed ex­pen­di­ture,” Ram­lo­gan said.

To il­lus­trate his claim that the Gov­ern­ment would suf­fer lit­tle or no prej­u­dice with the in­junc­tion in place, Ram­lo­gan point­ed to the ev­i­dence of its ex­pert British po­lit­i­cal econ­o­mist Mick Moore, who he claimed ad­mit­ted that coun­tries who in­tro­duced a se­mi-au­tonomous tax col­lec­tion agency did not see an im­me­di­ate in­crease in rev­enue.

Ram­lo­gan com­plained over the Gov­ern­ment’s fail­ure to ad­vise pub­lic ser­vants cur­rent­ly as­signed to the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion (CED) and the In­land Rev­enue Di­vi­sion (IRD) of the cri­te­ria they would need to meet to be se­lect­ed to be trans­ferred to the TTRA.

“How do we know they are go­ing to se­lect per­sons,” he said, as he sug­gest­ed that po­lit­i­cal ap­pointees may be cho­sen.

“No one is say­ing this can not be done, just that it was not done cor­rect­ly in this par­tic­u­lar case,” Ram­lo­gan said.

Re­spond­ing to the sub­mis­sions, Se­nior Coun­sel Dou­glas Mendes main­tained that Jus­tice Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son’s de­ci­sion was cor­rect.

“The claimant and her col­leagues will suf­fer no ir­repara­ble harm if she is not grant­ed the in­junc­tion,” Mendes said.

He ex­plained that those who were se­lect­ed to trans­fer to the TTRA would be re­in­stat­ed as pub­lic ser­vants.

Deal­ing with em­ploy­ees who chose to ac­cept ear­ly re­tire­ment through vol­un­tary sep­a­ra­tion, Mendes said: “They can go back to the pub­lic ser­vice if they wish but they would have to pay the mon­ey back.”

Asked by Jus­tice Ra­jku­mar about de­ci­sions tak­en by the TTRA if Dho­ray wins the case, Mendes said that cit­i­zens could still raise chal­lenges through the Tax Ap­peal Board.

He not­ed that rev­enue col­lect­ed by the TTRA would be added to the Con­sol­i­dat­ed Fund as is cur­rent­ly done.

“The oblig­a­tion to pay tax­es is not un­der chal­lenge,” Mendes said.

In the sub­stan­tive law­suit, Dho­ray is chal­leng­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al va­lid­i­ty of the T&T Rev­enue Act 2021.

She con­tends that cer­tain seg­ments of the leg­is­la­tion are un­con­sti­tu­tion­al as they seek to in­ter­fere with the terms and con­di­tions of em­ploy­ment of pub­lic ser­vants cur­rent­ly as­signed to the CED and IRD.

She is al­so claim­ing that the Gov­ern­ment did not have the pow­er to del­e­gate its tax rev­enue col­lec­tion du­ties.

The law­suit specif­i­cal­ly fo­cus­es on Sec­tion 18 of the leg­is­la­tion which was pro­claimed by Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo on April 24.

The sec­tion gives pub­lic ser­vants three months to make a de­ci­sion on their fu­ture em­ploy­ment up­on the op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion of the TTRA.

Af­fect­ed pub­lic ser­vants have the choice to vol­un­tar­i­ly re­sign from the Pub­lic Ser­vice, ac­cept a trans­fer to the TTRA, or be trans­ferred to an­oth­er of­fice in the Pub­lic Ser­vice.

In its de­fence, the Gov­ern­ment has claimed that tax col­lec­tion could be del­e­gat­ed once guide­lines are pro­vid­ed by Par­lia­ment.

Af­ter Jus­tice Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son re­ject­ed the in­junc­tion, Dho­ray made an ap­pli­ca­tion for her to re­cuse her­self based on con­cerns raised by PSA mem­bers over the al­leged friend­ship be­tween her hus­band Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC, and Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

Jus­tice Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son re­peat­ed­ly re­ject­ed the links as she claimed that she could pre­side im­par­tial­ly in the case be­fore even­tu­al­ly con­ced­ing.

The case has since been as­signed to High Court Judge West­min James.

Dho­ray is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Kent Sam­lal, Ganesh Sa­roop, and Vishaal Siewsaran. Si­mon de la Bastide is ap­pear­ing along­side Mendes for the State.